1. It calls for melted butter instead of room temperature butter. My butter is never room temperature unless it’s in my butter bell, and if it’s in my butter bell, it’s for putting on bread. My butter is always refrigerated or frozen, so making it room temperature is a battle of wills between me and my microwave, as I heat it for 5 seconds at a time, turning it between each 5 seconds, telling my microwave that it better not melt it while worrying that I’m getting head cancer from standing in front of my eye-level microwave. Melting it is easy- not melting it is hard.

2. It takes place in one bowl. Melt the butter in the bowl, put everything else in, the end.

3. It produces fudgy brownies as opposed to cakey. I’m a fudgy brownie girl- always have been. The reason, I think, is because I would always rather have fudge.

4. I like to sprinkle kosher salt on sweet things.

Salted Fudgy Brownies

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, melted

2 cups sugar

1 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup flour

1 cup good quality semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips

more salt for sprinkling

Method: Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees and spray Pam on a 9×13 baking dish. In a large, microwave safe bowl, melt that butter. When it’s melted, stir in the sugar and let it sit for a few minutes, cooling off the butter and melting the sugar a little. Stir it around, too. After 4 or 5 minutes, stir in the cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and vanilla extract.

it's very sandy at this stage. that's okay.

Mix in the eggs. Mix in the flour, then the chocolate chips. Spread the batter evenly in the pan (taking care to save some to eat with a spoon). It’s a very thick batter.

seriously, save some batter to eat with a spoon.

Sprinkle the whole thing with more sea salt and bake for 30 minutes. If, at 30 minutes, you stick a toothpick in and it’s still batter in there, bake for 3 or 4 more minutes. You should see a nice wet crumb, because these are supposed to be fudgy. I baked mine for 32 minutes all told, but ovens are different. Let them cool fully before you cut them, because they will firm up a lot as they cool off. ALSO- I read a tip recently that if you cut brownies with a plastic knife, they won’t stick to the knife and make those horrible ragged edges. I didn’t have a plastic knife, but if anyone tries this tip, please let me know if it worked!